


I Deserve More

by BeaRyan



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Punishment, S&M, Whipping, flagellation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/pseuds/BeaRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben likes to agonize over every life lost in his village after the blackout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Deserve More

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Davechicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/gifts).



Maggie flinched as the coffin thudded into the hole. They always tried to lower it slowly and remove the ropes gently, but inevitably someone lifted just a little to reduce the friction and when the rope slid free there was that sound. That hollow hit, as much as anything said during the funeral, marked the closing of a life for her, even when she'd closed the patient's eyes for the last time herself. 

Today they were letting go of Marilyn. She’d been a friend since Maggie had moved to Sylvania Hills. She'd helped her through the adjustment from itinerant independent to community member. Marilyn had held Maggie while she sobbed, helping her come to accept over many cups of tea that this was home now and she never would see her boys again. 

Their friendship flowed in reverse as well. Maggie had tended Marilyn through her pregnancies, sharing in the joy of new life even as she knew she’d never hold a child of her own again. She’d thought tying her tubes had been a smart choice back before the blackout, but sometimes she wondered if new babies would have at least partially filled the holes left by the old ones. 

Marilyn’s child baby had been born without trouble. The second had brought on gestational diabetes. Both mother and doctor had done what they could to control the problem, but without testing strips and glucose monitoring and with meals based more on what was available than what would stabilize her blood sugar, it had been a difficult battle, marked more by attempts to fix problems than periods of health. In the end the baby had grown too large for natural childbirth. An unanesthetized cesarean, attempted too late by candlelight in the bedroom, hadn't saved mother or child. 

Maggie leaned against Ben, hoping to draw comfort from him but suspecting he had none to give. He took deaths in this community to heart, blaming himself as if he were personally responsible for every infection and accident. He was too hard on himself. Ben’s feelings ran deep, still waters they say, and she suspected this would be another day the dam burst. It usually did after a funeral. 

They stayed at the graveside until the only Marilyn's husband, Greg, was left with them. Danny had taken the older, surviving child home for lunch. Ben laid a hand on the man's shoulder and tears welled in both their eyes. 

Greg spoke first. "She loved you both. Loved the life we'd built here."

"Will you stay?" Ben asked. Some people didn't. Some found it easier to move into the unknown than face the familiar alone. 

"I don't know what our lives would have been like without you, Ben," he answered. 

Ben let the tears fall. "Stay. I'll do everything I can." A sob caught in his throat ending the sentence and Greg drew him into a fierce hug.

"You always do right by us, Ben."

Ben pulled away and clapped the man on the shoulder, leaving him to sit near the fresh mound of earth. The smell of the soil permeated the air, reminding Maggie that plowing time would come soon. She loved the promise of spring and the look of tidy rows of crops, but the smell of overturned earth hurt, reminding her of too many friends she’d never see again and too many more whose fates she didn’t know. 

She gave Greg a quick hug and hurried to catch up with Ben. Maybe this time he'd settle for the comforts preferred by sane men. A warm dinner. A hot bath, a cup of tea, and a good cry. Post-funeral sex. She suspected not. She hated his ritual, but she knew it by now. Better to safely do the thing she loathed than clean up a worse than necessary mess later. 

When he turned north at the fork instead of heading south back home she knew they were headed to the clearing. She wouldn't be spared this. He wouldn't spare himself. He took these losses too hard. He was their mayor, not their god. He didn't have power over life and death. He felt responsibility for the people of the village, his noble dedication to others was one of the things she admired about him, but his self-flagellation every time he couldn't stop death from stealing a member of their community was simply too much. He'd have made a terrible doctor. 

Half an hour later he'd reached his clearing. She'd asked once what was so special about this spot and he'd told her this was where his children had said goodbye to their mother. That bit of wording had seemed particularly strange given that the children always said her death was assumed rather than confirmed, but nothing about this ritual was normal. 

Ben reached into the pile of leaves where he left his bag and pulled out the green duffel. Leaves and dirt clung to the outside and she suspected water had seeped in, perhaps molding the leather of the whip. She'd have to check it before they began. She only participated in this ritual to make it as safe as possible. Controlling the risk of infection was a part of that. Limiting the number and severity of the injuries and treating the wounds was the rest of it. "First do no harm" hadn't prepared her for loving a masochist. 

"Are you here to help me or argue with me?" he asked quietly. 

"I'll help. Do you want to be tied? You didn't seem satisfied with holding the overhead branch last time." 

"I couldn't stand for long enough. You stopped too soon."

"I stopped when you couldn't stand." 

"I'd like to wrap my arms around that large tree. Will you tie them together on the other side for me?" 

"No," she said. "I won't. You'll already be leaning your weight against the tree and letting it hold you long after you should fall. Tieing makes it too dangerous." 

"I need this," he said. 

"Your mind wants more than your body can handle. You need to be able to walk home. You'll scare the children if you aren't back by dark. We'll do this until one of us decides you've had enough, I'll clean you up, and you can take a nice long nap. I will not beat you until you're unconscious and leave you bleeding in the woods. These are my terms. Do you agree to them?" 

"Yes, Maggie."

"Good then. Clothes off and up against the tree." 

"Yes, Maggie." 

Maggie rubbed the whip with alcohol, checking for anything that looked like it might unexpectedly abrade the skin, darkly remarking to herself that the whip would do a fine enough job tearing at his flesh without an embedding an unexpected brier she'd have to pull out later. Soaking the leather with alcohol made it more painful, something Ben preferred, but it also meant he could take fewer lashes and he preferred a longer ritual. It couldn't be helped. She wouldn't compromise on sanitation. The whip had been sitting in that bag in a pile of molding leaves since the last funeral four months ago. It has been too well used in the months before that. It had been a bad winter. 

Ben hugged the tree and she studied the tracks on his back. The interwoven paths of raised rope-like scars began at his shoulders and ended above his knees. Some showed the lumps of picked scabs and infection. He'd healed poorly back when he'd been doing this himself with nothing to stop his excesses during the punishment and no one to clean the wounds afterward. He'd initially avoided talking about the scars, letting her think he'd been an abused captive, but once she'd begun living with him it had been impossible to hide the fresh marks. The night she'd learned about his habit he'd gasped when she'd tried to spoon him in bed, first pulling away and then pressing into her. The wounds had wept through his shirt and onto hers. He'd sobbed that night, saying he deserved it. That time it had been the death of a child who'd been bitten by a rabid dog. When the next person had died, a pneumonia that hadn't responded to the only antibiotic they'd been able to get, she'd followed him after the funeral. With practice they'd found a tenuous balance between his need to hurt with her need to help. 

"Put something between your genitals and the tree trunk," she ordered. "I don't care to pull out splinters later." The first year she would have said she didn't want him hurting anything she would want later. Back then she'd been sure it was sexual. They'd had safewords. Now it was a favor she did for him, like cleaning him up after he was sick. A disgusting and deeply personal task, but better to handle it properly than to leave him to handle it on his own when he was in no condition to do so. 

She swung hard and flinched at the sound of leather on skin. His cries didn't bother her as much as the sound of the hit. He was responsible for his own sounds and she for hers. She paused between hits to let him catch his breath. She’d learned to drag out the ritual so he could suffer the anticipation while she could physically harm him less. At fifteen strokes she decided he'd had enough. 

"That's all for today, Benjamin," she said.

"More," he begged. 

"No, love. No more today."

"I deserve more," he said. 

"Maybe," she acknowledged. "But I don't."

**Author's Note:**

> For Davechicken who asked for Ben / Maggie, El Diablito who referred to her recent work as a Miles Matheson self-flagellation and then didn't beat the hell out of him, and Miles Matheson himself who inspired the motto "Fic til he's not a dick."
> 
> Unbeta'd so please let me know if you see something.


End file.
